Amph What book are you reading right now?

Just started The Forbidden Tomb by Chris Kuzneski. It's the third in his Hunters series. I'm a great fan of his Payne & Jones books as well.

 

I feel prerty much the same way about Left Hand and Dispossessed. I respected the latter a lot more than I enjoyed it

 

"Tarkin" by James Luceno

Naturally a story like this has dramatic limitations built into it. We know where the character eventually ends up, so we know he's never in any peril here. The larger dramatic backdrop of galactic events won't even begin to be resolved. It really comes down to, can Luceno make this character-the one we eventually see in ANH-more interesting by fleshing him out here? We'll see.

 

I thought the Tarkin book was pretty good.

 

I'm thinking of purchasing From Hell by Alan Moore. Thoughts?

 

in the spirit of the thread, i am currently alternating between The Desert Spear, (peter v brett's demon cycle), Crown of Swords (wheel of time), Midnight Tides (malazan book of the fallen w00t), A People's History of the United States (howard "original" zinn) and Capital Volume 1, aided by A Companion to Marx's Capital (my man, David Harvey)

however, my reason for posting is that i wanted to ask about a fantasy series ive never heard of but recently started peeping on bookstore shelves: adrian tchaikovsky's Shadows of the Apt. the idea of an insect-based fantasy setting is pretty tantalizing to me (entomology is one field i could see myself pursuing a career in if i wasnt married to anthropology). anyone read this series or heard anything good/bad about it? im considering putting it in "the rotation" in place of brett's Demon Cycle once ive caught up on it

 

20 pages in, and so far, so... okay. I don't think this is going to be a classic, but it has the feeling of a solid, Star Wars sweet tooth satisfying read.

 

Buy it twice so that on your second read through you can just have the annotations open, rather than having to flip back to the appendix.

 

Really? It's that dense? How expensive is it though?


(I know you're joking, but I may actually do that.)

 

Finished reading Carl Sagan's Cosmos. I really want to watch the original miniseries now. Up next is Columbus: The Four Voyages by Lawrence Bergreen.

 

Has anybody read David Keck's In the Eye of Heaven? A friend gave it to me, but I'm finding it a bit of a slog and I'm not that far into it. Does it get better or worse as the story unfolds?

 

I'm thinking of starting Steven Erikson's "Mazalan Book of the Fallen" series, but should I just stick with the main story or include Esslemont's novels and the Kharkhanas Trilogy even though the latter is still incomplete?

 

Like too expensive for me to recommend seriously taking that approach (I want to say $30-35? My copy is at my apartment so I can't check). But I do seriously recommend a second reading where you cross reference to appendix page notes, they're awesome.

 

its pretty dense reading and it seems like you're capable of jumping from series to series, so id say you wont be too put out if you catch up before kharkanas is complete. also, i dunno if you've read this but you're missing a couple elements of the metaseries, both existing and forthcoming. erikson has confirmed in a reddit AMA that esselmont is currently writing a seperate prequel trilogy, (focusing on the rise of the malazan emperor and his compatriots). and erikson has expressed an ambition to write a sequel trilogy focusing on the exploits of a popular and important character from the Book of the Fallen, Karsa Orlong (Toblakai Trilogy is the working title of this one). there's also erikson's dark comedic novella series to consider, the Tales of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach

erikson has always been very diligent in his output and though the second kharkanas book has taken longer than usual for him to put out, he's younger and fitter than the robert jordans and george rr martins of the genre, so im not too worried that he wont finish the trilogy in relatively a timely fashion and without dying

im only on the fifth main series book myself. currently taking a break from it, (not to say it isnt fabulous, that's just how i roll, i like to jump between several books at a time, rather than reading one at a time). there are different opinions out there on reading order, some more radical than others, but most seem to agree that esselmont's first book, tho chronologically earlier than the main body of erikson's first novel, should not be read until at least a few books into erikson's strand. the reading order im following recommends that it be read after Midnight Tides, the book i am currently reading, fifth in the main series. as a result, i cant comment on esselmont's quality yet, but the concensus seems to be "not at all as good as erikson, but getting better with each book he writes and interesting enough that any fan of the main series is probably going to want to read them for the added details, background and plot strands". kharkanas has sometimes been billed as a good starting point for newcomers, since it takes place in the distant past of the main actions of the series so far, but since the trilogy hasnt been finished yet and wont be for at least a couple years, this seems like a dumb idea to me.

just start with Gardens of the Moon and keep going. keep in mind that Gardens can be frusterating because erikson has a very specific tone and style that takes getting used to, and he refuses to hold the reader's hand, more adamantly than any genre author ive encountered. in my case it took until about 2/3rds of the way through book three for me to be able to say i had a firm grasp of the world's cosmology. it takes acclimating, and erikson lets you work for it. its part of the reason he's able to squeeze as much novel complexity as he does into the series, so the rewards for your effort are quite high if you stick with it. also, although occassionally confusing for new readers, the second book represents a big step up in characterization, plotting, and prose from book one. erikson took a writer's workshop between book one and book two, and it shows. a lot of fans say that book two is their favorite in the whole metaseries. however, this does not mean you shoudl skip book one. you'll probably only be more confused, and book one is pretty great, imho, its just not on the level of subsequent books, (amazing)

as to the korbal broach series, they're a humorous side project, but the main characters first appeared in the third main series book, Memories of Ice, so presumably you can start tearing into them thereafter if you think the characters were entertaining in book 3. I like erikson's sense of humor and this subplot in book three quite a bit, so i read the first three published tales of bauchelain and korbal broach (contained in Bauchelain and Korbal Broach Vol. 1) between books 4 and 5. it had no bearing on the chronology as far as i can tell. they're pretty self-contained. The Lees of Laughter's End was hilarious and wonderfully constructed, and the other two tales in the omnibus were not bad either. ill read the remaining two at some point, im sure

anyways, hopefully that wasnt too much info, but i love the series a great deal. ill have to see how i feel abotu it when i finish, but i could easily see it having "all time fave" status

 

That whole Knightfall thing was just . . . I mean, at the time it was just mindblowing to me. And I think that it's just still one of my all time favorite comic story arcs. It was just so much more complex than anything I'd read up to that point. And so emotional.

 

Well, I finished both Walking Dead Compendiums. It was excellent. In some ways it's better than the show (Carl isn't an annoying ****) and in other ways it isn't (Governor is a sadistic bastard right away, Dale becomes loopy towards the end).

 

Thanks for the input Rogue_Ten. You've convinced me to give it a go. I think I may just do the main novels and Esslemont's side novels for now, wait until the Kharkanas trilogy is near completion and then do a massive reread. I'll probably have to get my library to order most of the books as they only have a handful right now.

So Esslemont's doing another prequel trilogy, huh? Saw the Toblakai trilogy mentioned on Erikson's wiki page, but wasn't certain if he was actually doing it since the link to his interview didn't mention it.

Edit: Turns out the library has the first three, but that's it. Have some ordering to do.

 

Awe inspiring book. Mine cost £25 a few years ago, worth every penny.

Don't buy two copies only to open both of them!

 

Well the closest B&N doesn't have a copy...

 

yeah, i think you certainly dont want to read the one kharkanas book that is out and THEN jump into the main series, that seems kind of counterproductive to me. best wait and reassess when you've gotten through the main series.

here is Erikson's AMA where he mentions the prequel book (looks like i made up it being specifically a trilogy, but it is apprently more than one book at least). the AMA is about a month old, so the info may be too cutting edge for wiki, perhaps

EDIT: nevermind, i guess it is a trilogy, and is collaborative between the two of them, interestingly.

 

The villain was the Bane of Batman's existence.

 

It’s Always Something (1989) - Gilda Radner



Here’s another book club selection. It’s a book Radner wrote, mainly about her battle with cancer. There are a few flashbacks to her childhood and earlier life, but the book really covers the period from 1981, when she met Gene Wilder, who would become her husband, until 1988, when the book ends with her in an ambiguous moment of not really knowing whether she’s going to recover from the current flare-up of cancer or not. Of course, we all know she didn’t, which lends the slightly hopeful tone of the final chapter a somewhat melancholy feeling. Anyway, I didn’t particularly like the book. It’s just really poorly written; Radner, if she did write this, needed a ghostwriter very badly. Or maybe she had a ghostwriter and that’s the one to blame for the flat, annoying prose. While her story is an engaging one, I found the prose to be so bad that it was literally a struggle to make myself keep reading the book. She has some, not altogether new, ideas about living your life fully, etc., and the book is ultimately life affirming, even if some of the descriptions of her treatments are striking in just how backwards cancer treatment still was as recently as the eighties. But, on the whole, it’s a book I didn’t enjoy the experience of in any way and it’s a book I simply have to recommend against. You guys, I cannot express how awful this writing is. Seriously. Bad read. Warned against. 1 star.

tl;dr – story of comedienne’s battle with cancer could be compelling, but dreadful writing absolutely sinks the entire enterprise. 1 star.

More Book Reviews!

 

Baxter's Proxima was ok. Cool things and dumb things.

Moving on.